Shadow of Doubt (6 page)

H
e's getting away with it.” Allie looked up at Celia, who sat with her arms hugging her knees on the big four-poster bed in Aggie's guest room. She looked so small there, so innocent. And so distraught. “Who?”

“Whoever it is,” she said dully. “He's ripped my life at the seams twice, and gotten away with it both times.”

“He's not going to get away with it,” Allie said. “Jill's working on it right now. She's doing everything she can, Celia.”

Celia wasn't buying. “For at least two years after Nathan died, I was so paranoid, Allie. I kept thinking the killer was stalking me, watching me, waiting to take my life, too. For a while, I almost hoped he would.”

“I remember when you first came to Newpointe,” Allie said. “You
did
seem timid, quiet. I thought you were just shy. Then you seemed to get over it, little by little.”

Celia sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. “I knew he was still out there. That never went away. But when I got involved in the church and met Stan, I just started concentrating more on living than dying. I think that kept me alive.” She looked down at her knees, clad in faded jeans. “I trusted him so much that I told him everything. And he trusted me unconditionally. He showed me how much God loved me, because he modeled it for me.” Sick grief reddened her face, and she leaned her head back on the ornate headboard.

“What if he wakes up and they tell him I tried to kill him, Allie? What if they convince him that I've had some dormant murderous instinct just waiting to jump out?”

“He won't believe it, Celia. You know better. He believed you before. He'll know you didn't do it this time. And if he wakes up, maybe he'll know where he got the poison, and the whole thing will be cleared up.”

“Or maybe he'll die, and it won't matter what they do to me.”

Allie got up and went to the bed, sat down beside her. Out of habit, she rubbed her hand over her round stomach. Celia's eyes followed her hand.

“We wanted to start a family, Allie,” she whispered. “That's why he started talking to my parents. He wanted to make things right, so our children would have grandparents on both sides. Today's my birthday, so he went to see them yesterday in hopes of getting them to agree to come for a visit today. I was starting to think it was all behind me, all of it, that God was returning the days that the locusts ate. I was starting to think he didn't let me die all those times I asked him to, because he had something wonderful waiting. But was this what he spared me for?”

Allie wiped the tears springing to her own eyes. “I don't know, Celia.”

Celia reached for a tissue next to the bed and blew her nose. “I read about all those martyrs in the Bible who walked into furnaces and lions' dens and were crucified and beaten and beheaded…and I can't help wishing that I had some greater purpose for my suffering, too. Does it feel better to suffer for a noble cause? Does injustice carry any peace if you're standing for some divine plan?”

Allie couldn't answer. She pushed the hair back from where it stuck to Celia's wet face.

“But there isn't any grand purpose here, Allie. There's no greater good. It's all just a mistake, but even if I'm not convicted of this, there will always be people who think of me as a murderess.”

She slid off of the bed and went to the window to look out on Aunt Aggie's backyard. Allie got up and followed her, and saw Chester, Aunt Aggie's gardener, pruning a pear tree.

“Maybe God's just pruning you, Celia. Sometimes bad things happen because he's just trying to prune us. Make us bear more fruit.” It was not what Celia wanted to hear, she realized, but it still could have some truth.

“I feel more like all my limbs have been amputated, right down to the trunk,” Celia said. She turned back around. “I'm gonna be sick.”

“No, you're not. You'll get through this, Celia—”

“No. I'm really gonna be sick.” Allie stepped back as Celia dashed from the room, and she winced as she heard her retching into the toilet.

Allie went in behind her and held her hair back while she bent over the commode. She should have made her eat, she thought. But Celia had complained of queasiness, and now Allie wondered again if the doctors had overlooked the poison in Celia.

The doorbell rang, and Celia looked up at her. “Don't answer it. It's Jed from the newspaper. He keeps coming to the door trying to get a statement. This'll be all over tonight's paper.”

“But it might be someone with news,” Allie said. “I'll go see. Will you be all right?”

Celia got up and stood over the sink to splash water on her face. “Yeah. Don't let anybody in, Allie. I can't see anyone right now.”

“Don't worry,” Allie said, then hurried down the stairs to answer the door.

Allie saw the man through the peephole, and instantly thought he must be a news anchor from one of the New Orleans stations. He looked like a model, though he was small in stature, with perfectly coiffed blonde hair and large blue eyes. Behind him, a photographer who'd been planted on Aggie's lawn was photographing and questioning him, but he ignored him.

“Who is it?” she asked through the door.

“David Bradford,” he said. “Celia's brother.”

Allie caught her breath and let him in, then quickly closed the door on the photographer. “Celia's brother,” she said, smiling at him. “I should have seen the resemblance.”

David shot past the small talk. “How is she?”

“Well, she's…hanging in there. She'll be better now that you're here. I'm so glad you came. I'll go get her.”

She left him standing there and rushed up the stairs. She found Celia brushing her teeth. “Celia, you have to come. It's a surprise. I think it'll cheer you up.”

“Allie, I don't feel like company. Please…”

“No, come on. You'll be glad you did. I promise.”

Celia stepped to the banister and peered over. Her brother David was coming up, and she caught her breath. “David!”

“Happy birthday,” he said. She met him halfway down and threw her arms around him, and he squeezed her so tight that Allie thought he might crush her. David was only three or four inches taller than Celia, but the similarities were so striking that Allie wondered if they were twins.

“You didn't think I'd stay away, did you?” he said, pulling her back from him and getting a good look at her.

Celia nodded and touched her brother's cheek. “It's been a long time.” She looked at Allie. “I guess you've met my baby brother, Allie?”

“Baby
brother?” Allie asked.

“She's only three years older,” David said. “Celia, look at you. Have you slept at all?”

She shook her head. “How could I? Can you believe this is happening again?”

“They searched our house,” David said. “Took dishes and food and looked in every nook and cranny. You woulda thought we were criminals.”

Celia led him into the parlor and sank down on a couch. He took the seat across from her. “I suppose Mom and Dad were embarrassed to death.”

“You could say that. And just when they were ready to reconcile. The timing…”

“I know,” she said.

He looked around the room, got up, and ambled to a table with family pictures. He picked up one of Celia as a child, dressed in pageant dress and striking a pose. “Where's Aunt Aggie?” he asked.

“She's gone to the hospital to see how Stan is doing.”

He set the picture back down. “How is he?”

“I don't know,” she said. “News hasn't changed. All we can get is that he's still in a coma. His parents don't want me there.”

He slid his hands into his trouser pockets and settled his troubled eyes on her. “Who would do this? It's so weird. Stan was just at the house yesterday. He looked great. And he did a great job with Mom and Dad, Celia. You would have been so proud of him. He did what I haven't been able to do in all these years. He brought them around.”

“Until this morning, when they reverted back to believing the worst about me.”

“They're in shock, Celia. We all are.”

“Tell me about it.” She rubbed her temples and shook her head. “The police questioned me for hours this morning, trying to reconstruct yesterday—everywhere Stan may have eaten. David, did he eat anything when he was visiting yesterday?”

David thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No, he didn't eat anything. Cook brought out some cookies, but if I remember, he didn't take one. He mentioned having a sour stomach. He did drink some tea, but so did we all, and it all came out of a common pitcher. The police were still there when I left. Guess they have to test every place Stan was yesterday. Isn't arsenic the poison you can get from eating almonds or something?”

“No, that's cyanide,” Celia said. “Did you see him eating almonds?”

“No, but I thought maybe he had picked some up on the way home. Did the police check his car for fast-food bags or anything?”

“Yes, they checked everything.”

“Well, maybe there was a receipt in there that would tell us where he stopped, what he might have bought…”

“They're working on tracing all those leads, but his car was pretty clean. There wasn't much to go on. It was after midnight before he got really bad,” Celia said.

“Then it would have to be something he ate at home, wouldn't it? Just before he went to bed. Are you sure he didn't get up after you were asleep and eat something?”

“He didn't feel well when we went to bed. I don't think he would have eaten. Besides, they've tested the food we had in the house.
Nothing
had arsenic. No, wherever he got it, it wasn't at home,” Celia said with certainty. “He got it on the road somewhere. During my trial, there were toxicology experts who said that arsenic could take up to twelve hours to work, so he could have gotten it almost anytime yesterday. But it's not a coincidence, David. Two of my husbands would not be poisoned with arsenic by accident. Somebody's trying to kill him, and we've got to find out who it is before they pull it off.”

 

A
cross town, Jill Clark sat at her desk, rubbing the ache at the back of her neck as she held the phone to her ear. Someone at Judge Spencer's office in Jackson, Mississippi, had put her on hold almost ten minutes ago, but still, she waited.

While the Muzac played out an organ rendition of “Sweet Caroline,” she scanned the legal pad on which she had taken copious notes at Aunt Aggie's house. Celia had easily answered all of her questions, holding nothing back. It was as if she thought that giving her enough puzzle pieces would help her to see the whole picture and quickly clear things up.

The Muzac stopped, and Jill sat up.

“Judge Spencer's office.”

Frustrated, she rolled her eyes. “I was on hold for the court reporter,” she said. “I'm calling in reference to a case Judge Spencer presided over. Jackson versus Celia Porter. It was six years ago.”

“Hold, please.”

She closed her eyes and moaned. It was so much easier to go down to the office and find it herself, but since the trial had been in Jackson, she was at their mercy. She turned the page of her notes and saw the names: Sheree Donolly and Lee Barnett. When she'd asked Celia if she'd ever had an idea who might have killed her first husband, she'd suggested these two names.

Sheree was a jilted girlfriend of Nathan's who bitterly resented Celia. Celia admitted that, if she'd been a killer, she would have gone after Celia, not Nathan. And why would she want to come back after all these years and kill Stan—someone she'd never even met? Celia had thought that too far-fetched to be true.

Still, Jill intended to check her out, see if there was any history of mental illness, any other crimes she may have been charged with.

Her eye moved to the notes she'd taken about Lee Barnett. He had been a computer programmer, upwardly mobile in his profession, Celia had told her, and she had dated him for a year. But he'd had more than one downfall. He drank too much, loved to party, and she'd caught him one too many times with another woman.

“Besides, it couldn't be him this time,” Celia had said. “He's in jail.”

“Jail?” Jill had asked her. “What for?”

“One of those nights he drank too much, he got into a fight and killed somebody. He was convicted of manslaughter.”

“Was this before or after Nathan was murdered?”

“After,” Celia had said. “Believe me, they did question him about Nathan's murder, but he'd been out of town at the time, and lots of people had seen him. A couple of years later he went to prison. I'm sure he's still there.”

Jill wondered. She'd have to make sure.

The thing was, someone had set Celia up. This wasn't just about murder. Whoever did it wanted Celia to look guilty. They'd gone to great pains, twice now, to point to her.

Celia had told her about the stacks of evidence they'd had against her in the trial. Arsenic in the house, journals on her computer, in which she'd supposedly planned out the murder…When she'd told her about them, Celia had sworn that she never used that computer and that she'd never even bought an insecticide for the house, much less arsenic.

Whoever the killer was, he'd done a good job. Jill supposed it was by the grace of God that the jury had acquitted her.

“Ann Hutchins.”

The voice on the telephone startled her, but she tried to refocus her thoughts. “Yes. I'm calling to order a transcript of a trial that Judge Spencer presided over about six years ago. Were you his court reporter then?”

“Yes, I was,” the woman told her. “What was the name of the case?”

“Jackson versus Celia Porter,” she said. “Could you tell me if it would be possible to get that transcript today?”